Warning: Spoilers!

The Usual Suspects is an excellent film, correctly celebrated for its non-linear structure and unreliable narrator. But it’s also a fascinating look at male anxiety in the way the characters are consistently calling into question each others’ sexuality and masculinity. As the Suspects themselves jockey to out-man each other Verbal Kint/Keyser Soze looks on showing the virtue of thought and ambiguity amid the cock-fights. It’s an anxiety that seems increasingly pervasive in male-culture, finding angry expression in communities such as Red Pill or in humorous social comment in #masculinitysofragile?. It’s with great prescience that Chris McQuarrie’s script for The Usual Suspects explores this.

Throughout the film the threat of loss of masculinity is ever present, with the possibility of passivity (especially in the sense of sexual penetration) seen as the greatest fear. Not so much death for McManus, Hockney, Fenster and Keaton but buggery as the ultimate humiliation. Their strength is seen in terms of this, their unwillingness to “bend over for anybody” in Kint’s terms. They tease and threaten each other with penetration (Fenster to Hockney “Hey lover boy, you wanna piece?”, McManus to Hockney “You wanna dance with a man for a change?”) When Keaton is arrested he’s told he’s not a business man, “From now on, you’re in the gettin’-fucked-by-us business.” Bending over, being fucked is the greatest threat. Is it any wonder these men grip their guns so tightly throughout the film? This constant reassurance of their masculinity, the acceptable cinematic phallus helps define, and protect them

Except that it doesn’t. They are all undone by the most passive one of them all. One who talks rather than acts, who hurts and plans. Is it any coincidence that Verbal states that “I’ll probably shit blood tonight” having been punched by Keaton, revealing his own penetrability (unsurprisingly anal). Agent Kujan tries to dominate him mentally and physically, but its his own status as a “cripple” and a “gimp” (which means both disabled and a sexual submissive) that give him an advantage. It’s beyond these men, and their physical anxiety, to understand that they can be controlled by talk, not physicality, that passivity can be controlling.

Fundamentally this is the fear of the feminine (passive, talking, penetrated) that has taken root in our culture since the Victorian era – it’s created a binary opposition where attitudes and qualities accrue on either side and slippage isn’t possible. It’s beyond anyone in the film to see that Verbal Kint could move across boundaries, have qualities from either groups. It’s a division especially riven into US culture from the Western in which masculinity is held superior for its silence, action and ruggedness, with women connected to the home and hearth but also the emasculating forces of civilization.

Oddly it reminds of the classical split between Rome and Greece, and the USA is often compared to Rome. The Greeks had Odysseus praised for his wiles and planning, his cunning and speech. For the Romans he became Ulysses a treacherous man, whose deceit was an un-Roman quality. It may not be un-linked that the Greeks were more interested in sex between men. We don’t know whether Alexander the Great was a top, but it’s clear in the Illiad that Achilles was a bottom.

Classical diversions aside The Usual Suspects suggests the current growing anxiety in some men about their gender – that any quality that aligns them with women/homosexuality is to be driven away. Ironically, this leads to their downfall. Turns out their masculinity is fragile, rather like a Kobayashi mug.

Spoilers!

I’ve never really got Brian De Palma. Of all the movie brats (Spielberg, Coppola, etc) he’s the one I’ve engaged with least, and he’s probably the least respectable in critical circles. Post The Untouchables (1987) he became more mainstream, hitting blockbuster heights with Mission: Impossible (1996) but has tailed off since, with his most recent films gaining less attention and smaller releases. Maybe mainstream success was the end of him because Dressed to Kill is far more interesting than his blockbusters, reveling in sleaze and controversy, but also showing how good De Palma can be.

When released in 1980 Dressed to Kill was widely condemned by feminists and gay rights groups for its depiction of violence and transsexualism. All the women are subjected to serious violence and terror. Sexual difference was linked to violence. However 24 years distance and the film takes on a very different light, one in which men are repeatedly exposed and condemned. If anything this film shows us how women’s desire is continuously repressed and negated by society.

The opening of the film would be unheard of today, a long lingering set of shots on Angie Dickinson (49 at the time) in the shower fantasizing. It’s a moment that simultaneously acknowledges female desire, and suggests that women over 40 can be attractive and have a sex drive. In the cinema culture of today, where actresses are getting younger and disposed of by age 40, this seems unfathomable. It is alas all a dream for Angie, and the film cuts abruptly to the “wham, bam, thank-you ma’am” sexual practice of her husband. Angie fakes it, but her discontent is obvious to us. She visits her shrink, Michael Caine, and confesses her need to be desired. What follows is a wonderful, dreamlike, sequence in an art gallery where Angie pursues a man, and is pursued by him. The camera drifts along the corridor tracking her excitement and fear, as she follows him, and is followed. An amazing scene happens, again one that I can’t imagine would occur in today’s Hollywood, in which the man goes down on Angie in the back of a cab. The whole sequence, from gallery to cab, focuses on her pleasure and desire, and shows sex as something other than a penetrative act.

She awakes, happy. It can’t last of course. She discovers the man has VD and as she flies a woman brutally murders her in an elevator, with a cut-throat razor no-less. Here the film switches to Nancy Allen, a “Park-Avenue Whore”, who witnesses the murder (and whose John scarpers at the first sight of blood). As Nancy becomes a target, Michael Caine starts getting threatening answer-phone messages from a trans-gender patient and the plot deepens.

I can see where the critics came from in 1980, decrying the fact that the sex in the film is linked to violence and violation, and that in a world where the trans-community was struggling with it’s representation the inclusion of a possible trans-killer was not helpful. But today the film reads more as a critique of men, with both women used and attacked repeatedly. In a patriarchal world what other punishment for daring to embrace one’s sexual desire could there be for a women other than disease and death? The heroine, Nancy Allen, is blackmailed by the sleazy cop (a young Denis Franz) into doing her own detective work. While pursued by the killer she’s repeatedly hustled, and leered at by men, a status as object only re-enforced by her job (although the film shows how she uses information from customers to gain investment info). The only male figure in the film to emerge sympathetically is Angie’s son, a tech-obsessed geek depicted in a pre-adolescent phase. The film seems to say that the only man worth anything is the one who hasn’t yet woken up to sex. What is a male-to-female trans-sexual but the ultimate male possession of woman, body and soul?

Stylistically the film contains some wonderful shots and techniques, really building on De Palma’s reputation as a Hitchcock style film-maker. The use of mirrors is especially well done, and a sequence on a train platform, and then in the train, masterfully ratchets up the tension. Some of the acting is a bit rough around the edges but overall it’s top entertainment and an example of the type of film Hollywood rarely makes these days; a modestly budgeted thriller aimed at adults.

There must be something in the water in Galway for one family to have produced to excellent directors, Martin and John Michael McDonagh (if you haven’t seen The Guard stop reading and go watch it). Whatever the family secret Martin, who previously directed In Bruges, delivers another winner in this fun and surreal take on one writers attempt to write a new film. He hasn’t got much, only a title, but his quest to discover the perfect plot (via real stories, from real psychopaths) takes us on a fun ride that pokes fun at various Hollywood cliches without becoming smug or self-satisfied. Colin Farrell stars, as he did In Bruges, and again shows his value is higher in quirkier fair. Hollywood will keep trying to put him in mainstream action films, such as the soulless Total Recall re-make, but he works best in more thoughtful pieces that run against the Hollywood grain. Kudos goes to Sam Rockwell (almost uniformly excellent in everything) a touching performance from Christopher Walken and a nice cameo from Tom Waits.

This a terrific, sweaty, nasty little film. William Friedkin, after years in relative wilderness, confirms that class is permanent with this tightly directed Southern Noir in which almost no-one comes out clean. It takes the classic insurance con set up (the policy even has double indemnity), and throws it into the trailer trash confines of a poor Texas family whose main goal is to eat as much K-Fried-C as possible. It’s like Billy Wilder directing an episode of Honey Boo Boo. Loser Chris (Emile Hirsch) owes some money, and schemes to off his own mother, taking his father, step-mom and sister along for the ride. Along comes Joe (an excellent Matthew McConaughey) demanding a retainer Chris doesn’t have. But then he sees Chris’ sister Dottie (Juno Temple)…

McConaughey continues a recent career renaissance, confirming his early promise that got lost somewhere in all those romantic comedies, making Joe charming and chilling all at the same time. His evolving relationship with Dottie manages to be both exploitative and tender, veering between sexual assault and romance in the blink of an eye. It’s a small, confined, well built movie that builds in unexpected, but convincing ways.

Almost no-one is likable, and yet everyone is fascinating and well played – simple caricatures are avoided. And it has the best use of K-Fried-C in a while.

Greengrass specialises in this – creating a drama so raw, so real, that it feels like you’re there. United 93 put you in the plane, willing the passengers to break the cockpit door, despite the inevitability of failure. This time, and with a little star-power from Tom Hanks, the action takes place on two boats – a huge container ship, that gets besieged by Somali Pirates, and the lifeboat the Pirates use in an effort to get back home. It makes for a claustrophobic and sweaty experience.

It opens cutely, cross-cutting between Hanks as his eponymous Captain gets ready for work and the prep of the Somali pirates – choosing the strongest to get into the skiffs, tiny boats with which they’ll use to assault the shipping lanes off Africa. There’s something heroic about the Pirates (all played by amateurs); their determination, and desperation, at a world where their traditional livelihood of fishing has been destroyed by the same people who insist the waters are international. Greengrass is no apologist though, drawing a distinct line between the Pirates choices and actions. By the time the US Navy arrives, the film has clearly shifted to Hanks who puts in an excellent shift.

It’s not a surprise that Greengrass made this. What is surprising that it’s made over $150 million at the box-office. A good alternative to the usual Hollywood bluster, and further evidence that audiences want more than just sequels and re-makes.

Ah Chris McQuarrie my friend – it’s good to hear from you. The Usual Suspects stands as one of the best films of the 90s and Jack Reacher shows you haven’t lost your ear for dialogue. Some of the exchanges in Jack Reacher are laugh out loud fun in a screwball kind of a way. This adap of a Lee Child novel (of which I know nothing) is good fun, if a little saggy at the end. It clearly evokes 70s thrillers, especially Dirty Harry, and provides a bit of muscular fun for a quiet evening. Tom Cruise plays Reacher the sort of badass who no-one has ever heard of but who everyone immediately respects (apparently Reacher is over 6 foot in the novel. Cruise, 5’7″.) Fights ensue, shirts (mostly Cruise’s) are taken off, and cars are driven with a reckless abandonment. And then Werner Herzog turns up as the bad guy – a man so hard he bit off his own fingers while imprisoned in a Russian prison. Seriously. So it may not be the most believable thing, and it borrows the plot twist from Agatha Christie, but it’s good solid fun. Just next time Tom, if there is a next time, keep the shirt on – you don’t have to compete with the young-uns.

PS – the ABC Murders is the Christie that’s copied. Sorry if that screws things for you, but hey it’s kind of obvious.

If Hitchcock was still making films I’m sure he would have made fascinating use of CCTV and surveillance technology. This thought occurred to me while watching Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In which has Hitchcockian undertones, with particular echoes of Rear Window and Vertigo. Antonio Banderas, re-united with Almodovar after many years, plays a skilled surgeon, an expert in skin grafts and cosmetic procedures, who’s haunted by the death of his wife in a fire some years ago. In his house, which doubles as a clinic, he keeps a patient on whom he’s testing a new synthetic skin. Who this patient is, and why they’re there, drives the plot into unexpected territory.

Beautifully shot in several sparse interiors a tale of obsession unfolds. Banderas is better here than in any of his American films, revealing a sinister side to the surgeon. Elena Anaya as his patient is also excellent – her eyes are almost always on the edge of tears, hinting at the shocking truth that has led her to be a prisoner/patient in Banderas’ home.

Engaging with ideas of revenge, sexuality, and identity The Skin I Live In unfolds in a surprising manner, Almodovar employing a non-linear structure, with multiple flashbacks, to gradually fill in the plot gaps. Caught somewhere between thriller and horror, it’s a film that slowly creeps up on you and gets under your own skin.

Ah Stallone, I know many are immune to your lopsided charms but I’ve always been drawn to you. Perhaps it’s the fact that someone so unlikely became one of the biggest stars in the world. Maybe it’s the career trajectory, compared to Brando in your early days, then swapping critical respect for big, dumb, stupid movies. Either way I’m making it a long term quest to watch all your movies (not the comedies though, no-one deserves that). To fulfil that noble ambition Nighthawks made my viewing list. Sitting between Rocky
and First Blood it’s part of the early proper actor career – you can tell it’s serious because Sly’s got a beard. Not a thin, sculpted effort like he has now, but a proper manly beard, the sort in which food and small children might get lost. I read once that the script for Nighthawks began as a draft for The French Connection Part 3 and you can see the influence in the ‘down to earth’ locations and the opposition of a rough, unsophisticated, New York Cop battling a sophisticated Euro-Villain (this time the bad guy’s a terrorist!). The main difference here is that Nighthawks dumps most of the verisimilitude that marked the French Connection films and concentrates on one note characters and scenes in crappy night clubs. The ace in the hole is Rutger Hauer as the villain, Wulfgar. It’s also the film’s big problem. Giving a typically full-on performance in his first US film Hauer is just much more fun than anyone else on screen. He doesn’t have much character but he chews what little he’s given to great effect – meaning that you’re left on his side while feeling unengaged by Stallone’s clichéd cop (he’s got relationship issues, doesn’t obey his captain, but has a really good instinct for police work. He actually says he’s learning how to think like the bad guy).

Anyway, typical cat and mouse shenanigans ensue, as Sly, with Billy Dee Williams and some English actor from 80s TV shows in support, chase Hauer around the subway and other typically ‘real’ locations. The action is reasonable if unoriginal. Highlights include Lando getting cut in the face. Sly is out-acted by his beard. Sly turns up in drag. The whole is less than the sum of its parts.